I woke up early today and got the coffee on for our guest.
She was already up, rummaging ready, for her waiting train.
I began to fantasise over, a packed and full day.
The day was a whickered hamper laden with food.
I was ticking off jobs imaginary.
And then I flirted with the idea of bed.
Back to it, reading.
I had merged luxurious with virtuous.
Or so I told myself, slumping
Into a bright phased, fitful glaze.
That was my first mistake,
My past ripeness rotting in its wake.
So I finally wrenched myself from paralysis,
No more moved by that sense of importance.
No longer noble aspiration whirred in my mind,
That sludge of neurons, chemical slobs
Fat with comfort.
Crammed with stimulation
Diluted by passivity
Wade through this negativity.
No idea which foot to put first, I put both in
A hot bath.
Which was my second mistake.
My skin swollen like the rest of me.
Wealthy means to cook oneself in excess time and thought.
Privileged! Let’s take our vital heat and turn it up,
In the name of comfort.
Food, Clothing, Shelter.
Why do we wither and toil to get hotter.
Even hotter.
The rich think they gotta.
I know better
But that don’t stop me stewing my balls,
And going all light headed.
A walk will set me straight,
Out the door I treaded.
Slouching from one worry to the next
Thinking, perhaps I will make myself ill like this.
Which worried me too.
I’m a wind chime.
I wait for wind in the darkness.
I shiver for a gust.
I tremble at the prospect of my own noise
I strain my ears for that authentic sound.
Where is my natural clatter,
blowing in another wind.
But I was in no place for rhythm
Mind settling on another anxious thought.
Do I drink enough water?
Feeling thirsty.
Coffee aching those chemical squatters into agitated
hotness.
Something is gunna give.
This day is where I want to live.
I started noticing mushrooms,
More mushrooms.
Catholic in colour, shouting out little secrets.
Jumping abruptly out of every dirt ground and wood stump.
It was my joy to bump about looking for lunch and my
salvation.
I inspected each green hump
With a growing throat full of lump.
A knowing sense of my inadequacy.
I do not trust myself.
I clutched the parasol too tight.
Full of moisture it oozed out its poisoned taunt.
And I badly wanted to taste its freedom between my jaws.
I carried it like a plate and paused to watch the pig.
The lucky pig.
Fending off bracken and clumsy thought.
Roaming about the acorns kicking up dust among the trees,
thinking of her
sisters,
packed pink in a slaughter house living like pigs.
I wondered if she would tell with the same certainty I had
conjured,
that the mushroom was an edible gift.
It’s not the first time I have thrown my food to the pigs.
She smelled my doubt and sneered.
She’d sooner be a sausage than a convenient excuse.
I had lied to myself and she knew it.
My mood dulled for a moment.
That desire to take responsibility for my own life,
Flickering again.
My life in shadow.
But, as it often does the sun gathered and bustled behind
the heavy gloom.
Thank God.
I will trust who I am, that is light enough
for now.
I play thoughts like distractions and my toys don’t gather
dust.
I never put them down for anything to settle.
Shall I get serious, that is
Is it time to trust?
Your money or you life!
You can have my toys, I reply
Into the wood and down the snicket I run.
There, comforted by the sound of my own panting
All hungry breath, wand wet warm, sweat.
I notice some sturdy logs cut down the middle.
Chestnut.
All that flesh got me.
The smell it got me too.
I would make a bookshelf,
And be useful.
I felt useful already and feelings have to be used.
So I staggered back, weighed down by wood and wonder.
Waiting for no one.
Worried only for a moment, cautious of dragging a splinter,
through my neck.
I’m no quivering wreck.
I am a maker.
I am a taker.
All I have I give to you.
Bustled back, right down I sat
To write this _ instead
Who will grade my toys
Who is there to make an unmade bookshelf made.
Managed.
See it through, Tom
Make it true, tom
